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| Saturday, 05 May 2012 21:50 |
Porto 2-0 SportingHulk brace caps festa at the Dragao Champions Porto won their final home game 2-0 against nine-man Sporting in an entertaining Clássico, with Hulk's brace the difference. The loss sees the Lions fail in their late surge for a Champions League spot.
Before the start of the game FC Porto were able to collect their Primeira Liga medals with the entire squad complete with blue and white hair, and in some cases, beard dye. Joao Moutinho's two-faced blue and white facial hair was particularly worthy of mention.  The warm up to the game for Sporting was rather contrasting in fortunes. Joao Pereira and Marat Izmailov were both injured in the build-up to the match. Bruno Pereirinha and Andre Carrillo had to take their places in the team.The game began with a bright start, Sporting looking forceful in the early minutes when Emiliano Insua stung the hands of Porto goalkeeper Helton with a powerful shot from distance. Porto soon regained their composure after the early party atmosphere when Joao Moutinho's freekick found Nicolas Otamendi at the back post but the Argentine couldn't get the desired amount of contact on the ball from a good position. Although there was plenty of entertaining football on display there was a lack of goalmouth action. Porto retained the greater amount of possession whilst Sporting looked to find opportunities on the counter-attack.  There was certainly a large amount of refereeing action on display though. Pedro Proenca handed out five yellow cards in the first half in a game that had, all in all, not been a dirty one. A result of those cards means both Cristian Sapunaru and Oguchi Onyewu picked up their fifth yellow, ruling both players out of next weekend's final round.Goalscoring chances were to finally come in the second half and the game's very first good chance came from an unlikely source. Anderson Polga almost scored one of the goals of the season when his long distance volley smashed off Helton's right-hand post. Porto soon had their first big chance of the game too. Silvestre Varela played a 1-2 with Hulk but Rui Patricio did well to deny the former Sporting man from opening the scoring with quick reactions.  The course of the game changed completely when Oguchi Onyewu fouled Hulk after 67 minutes. It seemed more like an accidental clip of the heels from the American defender but referee Pedro Proenca was quick to give Onyewu his second yellow card and reduce Sporting to 10 men.This left Porto with a freekick from a very good position which Hulk smashed low and hard just wide of the goal. Pedro Proenca was again called into action when he awarded Porto and penalty and gave a straight red card to Anderson Polga. The incident had started from excellent play by Hulk down the left to find substitute Marc Janko. The Austrian's strike was well saved by Rui Patricio but the rebound fell to James Rodriguez who was tripped by Polga. Sporting were now left with 9 men on the pitch.  Inevitably it was Hulk who would step up to take the penalty, sending Patricio the wrong way and putting the Champions ahead, leaving a furious Ricardo Sa Pinto to take his frustrations out on an unfortunate water bottle.With Sporting having used all 3 of their substitutions it left little opportunity for Sa Pinto to change his team. Elias and Bruno Pereirinha formed the most makeshift of central defensive partnerships as the away side tried to find an unlikely equaliser. Sporting's spirit pushed them forward, enabling Porto to happily pick them off on the counter attack with vastly superior numbers each time. This finally told in the 89th minute when Hulk finished the game after taking the ball past Patricio and tapping home to finish the game off. Proenca wasn't done just yet. He gave another harsh second yellow card to Fernando in the very final seconds of the games and the Brazilian midfielder took it graciously by literally dancing off of the pitch. Porto then finishing strongly yet again at the Dragao as party atmosphere continued. Hulk's performance certainly gave the Porto fans something to cheer about. Sporting meanwhile will have to settle with Europa League football again next year after not only this defeat but also Braga beating Beira-Mar at home. It sets up a dead rubber tie between 3rd and 4th in which Sporting will be searching for a central defensive partnership to take to the field. Goals [1-0] Hulk (P, 82') [2-0] Hulk (89') Porto: Helton, Sapunaru (Danilo, 57), Maicon, Otamendi, Alex Sandro, Fernando, Lucho Gonzalez (Defour, 64), Joao Moutinho, James Rodriguez, Silvestre Valera (Janko, 57), Hulk. Sporting: Patricio, Pereirinha, Anderson Polga, Onyewu, Insua, Elias, Schaars (Diego Rubio, 79), Matias Fernandez (Andre Martins, 71), Andre Carrillo (Jeffren, 60), Capel, van Wolfswinkel. Richard Cole |
Cheers
Geoff
The pictures are great.
If real, refs have to be smarter than this guy.
All kudos for Porto. For one, I still think they had a disappointing year. They should have advanced out of that Group in the CL.
They still got it together in time in order to win the league. Great job by them.
It will be interesting to see what happens this offseason. Unlike last year you can expect several players to want and even demand out. Facile, Perreira, Rolando and even possibly Moutinho. Hulk will also be a huge question mark. I could see Chelsea and PSG to go after him and don't discount Malaga.
After a relatively quiet off season last year, this one could bring turmoil.
Absolutely sickening to the core
Our liga does nothing to punish refs who do a poor job and they rarely step in when there are bribery issues. There are people making big money on some of these rigged matches and it’s only weakening our liga. It hurts all of our clubs and adds another reason why less people want to attend games and watch our liga.
Sporting is a direct rival to us but even I’ll admit that they were robbed several times early this season which took them out of the title and CL race. I just hope that UEFA/FIFA start putting in technology into the game which gives me some hope that it will force our liga to do a better job at providing a fair championship.
On a side note, one of those reds were warranted as there was a clear tackle within the box that would have likely lead to Porto scoring. I’m not trying to take anything away from Porto’s win over Sporting, I’m just saying that it is very clear that every year our liga continues to see a wide range of matches where several teams get screwed and it does affect the ending table results and European seeds for teams in our liga. There’s a lot of money in rigging games throughout the smaller leagues and it clearly shows that we’re no different.
And come on. Someone explain to me how Cardozo handles the ball twice in the box and gets away with it vs Porto? The ref was standing right there and no call? Some people have short term memories when it comes to ref "bias"...
The season for sporting was decided in the first four game with terrible calls. The straight red to rinaudo against guimaraes in the first half is another instance in which 3 points were taken from sporting. much like a few years back when sporting finished second by 1 point the clear handball goal by the pacos player earlier in the season ruined everything at the end.
But reducing Sporting to 10 men wasn't enough and it was getting late Then, he saw his chance. Porto was in the Sporting box and someone in blue and white goes down. Immediate red for Polga? Of course. Nevermind that Pereirinha is cleared out at the far end of the box in order for the ball to get to James. Whatever it takes.
Just to make it look like he's being impartial, wily Proença shows Fernando a second yellow at the end. But Fernando knew that it was just part of the show and started his party early.
Porto have a great team. Have had great teams for years. Just need some extra help once in a while. The show must go on after all.